Okiku Furikabutte Season 1
by Jackie Robinson
Summary: Thomas was never a crowd favorite for playing baseball always called "fat" or, at best "too big" to play any good positions for a long time but when he joins Nishiura High's new baseball team he's in for a world of surprises. Can he handle a female coach? A dominating catcher? And a wimp of substitute? And can he show his friends they were wrong? Or will his season be a flop?
1. Introduction

**Okiku Furikabutte is the property of Asa Higuchi, sadly I do not own the series. I do however own Thomas Devout, Bradley Grant, Alex Damian, Craig Foster and Johnny Griffin and all use of them without my permission in other fanfics will result in the story being flagged.**

**P.S Thank you for reading and enjoy!**

_Intro  
>(Bitter-Sweet)<em>

_The setting sun shone down upon the field at Robert Peary Middle School as the bottom of the final inning of the Tokyo Regional Middle School Baseball Tournament began. I sat motionless in the dugout entrance as I saw the first batter, Craig Foster, go down swinging on a sinking fastball from the opposing pitcher. Our school was an unusual one, not as in it had a bad record; just in the sense that the people who went there weren't normal, every single one of us were children of American ex-patriots. Glancing into the stands I saw scouts from high schools, I knew who there were here to scout and much to my displeasure I wasn't one of the two players lucky enough to get scouted. _

_"Thomas you're on deck" my coach said and I put on my batting helmet and grabbed my bat and batting gloves before getting into the on deck circle. I looked up at the score board and saw the score the away team, Hiroshi Middle School, led us by a score of 2-0, my attention was brought back to the game when I heard the call of "ball four" and saw the batter, Brad Grant, walk to first base. I walked to the plate and rolled the bat towards our dugout before taking a practice swing._

_"Okay Thomas let them walk you" coach yelled out from the third base coach's box and I simply nodded before turning around and rolling my eyes. It was like this every game Coach Matt only tried to get a few players noticed at all first his son Johnny Griffin, second our shortstop Brad Grant, and finally our pitcher Alex Damian. _

_'Ignore coach, wait till you get your first strike before you start to swing, just like in Little League" I thought to myself as I saw the pitcher go into his windup and throw the pitch._

_"Ball!" The umpire cried out and the catcher threw the ball back to the pitcher who threw his next pitch for a strike._

_'Okay now swing away' I though as I saw the pitcher go into his windup before throwing the ball. I stepped into it and swung, the loud clang of metal hitting solid leather and the ball dropped right before the right fielder who threw it to the cut off man as I reached 1st base. The next batter, Alex Damian, was put pitcher and had been forced to come in to relieve the Coach's son, Johnny, in the 4th inning after he'd had a very poor start to the game. _

_"Okay Alex lay one down" Coach Matt said as the pitcher threw the ball, doing so Alex proceeded to execute a bunt and the catcher ran forwards and picked it up._

_'Good he's going to throw Alex out and allow Brad and I to advance' I thought, but I saw the catcher get ready to throw to second instead._

_'Oh no he's going for the double play' I though as I suddenly sped up and slid into second, causing the shortstop to have to jump up to avoid me and catch the throw from the catcher... and miss it. The ball sailed into centerfield and seeing this Bradley rounded third base and scored making the score 2-1. The next person who walked to the plate was a pinch hitter, and the kid who had all the scouts gawking, Johnny Griffin. He walked up to the plate and oh so casually tipped his cap to the umpire before getting ready for the pitch, which came low on the inside for a ball._

_"Nice job Johnny" Coach Matt said clapping his hands, this intern caused me to roll my eyes, that's all he did push his son and tell the rest of us "average" players to sit down and watch. He never tried to better anyone but his son, especially when it came to me a kid who wanted to get better and show that in baseball it didn't matter how big you were all that mattered was if you could play or not. Even though I was only 14 I already weighed 200 kilos but despite that I could play, I could run and throw and hit just as good as a kid who weighed only 100 kilos. But I remember coach's first words at the first practice of the entire season "aren't you a little big to play baseball?" I'll be honest it pissed me off and that was my whole season and pretty much my life, I was too "big". I was too "big" to have friends, I was too "big" to be cool, I was too "big" to hang out with female friends, and I was too "big" to play sports and be good._

_The next pitch that came at him he watched go for a ball and he took a time out as he stepped outside the box and took a swing before stepping back into the batter's box. Another pitch came by and he let it go for a strike before stepping out of the batter's box , taking a practice swing, and stepping back into the batter's box. This time however he looked like he was ready to swing, the pitcher got this sign, went into his windup, and threw and Johnny swung. The loud sound of him making contact with the ball caused me to look at the ball and take a few steps from the bag and watching the ball sail over the centerfield fence for a walk off three run home run. I rounded third and touched home and watched Alex do the same before Johnny finally did so and we all gave him high fives, back slaps, and a pat on the head as we celebrated. After having our photos taken with the championship trophy I gathered my stuff and met my father at the stadium exit._

_"Hey dad what's for dinner?" I asked as I walked up to him._

_"I was going to let you pick, seeing how your team is the Tokyo regional champions" my father said before giving me a high five. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Johnny, Bradley, and Alex talking to a few scouts from different high schools before Johnny began to shake hands with the one from Tosei High School while Alex and Grant shook hands with the one from Mihoshi Academy. _

_'Well I guess I better just let it go and go to a high school that doesn't have a baseball club, I mean it's clear no one thinks I have the stuff to play baseball here and mom & dad aren't going to look into going home until the end of next summer' I thought to myself as I drove off towards the city and I began to pout over a bitter-sweet victory. _

Chapter 1  
>(Joining Nishiura)<p>

The bright afternoon sun shone down on the field at Nishiura High School covering every aspect of the almost perfect looking field softball or possibly baseball field. I stood looking at the field feeling the heat and the large amount of the sun on my skin, causing my skin to turn a darker shade of dark chocolate brown.

'Maybe I shouldn't have gone here, I mean watching girls play softball is worse than watching a game of high school baseball' I though to myself as I threw a very nonchalant glance over my shoulder and seeing the most unusual kid to my right. He had dirty orange hair and wore a uniform similar to mine, seeing how he was also looking at the field I walked over him to try to start a conversation.

"Hey" I said as I reached him he froze up, and slowly turned his head towards me.

"Yeah?" he asked, shaking for some reason.

"My name is Thomas Devout, but everyone calls me Thomas, what's yours" I said and stuck my hand out to conduct a hand shake, only to have the kid look at it uncertainly.

"What's the problem? Never done a hand shake before?" I asked as the boy hesitantly stuck his hand out.

"My name is Ren Mihashi" the boy said as he grasped my hand and gave me a handshake. Mihashi had bark brown eyes, which seemed to go with his dark orange hair, he also had almost milky white skin. Something else to be noted was despite having height on his side he was almost as thin as a stick.

"I saw you staring at the baseball field, do you play?" I asked as I turned back towards the field and kept looking at in only to notice a small amount of people near one of the dugouts. Out of nowhere I heard a yelp and turned to see Mihashi looking at woman who was cockily smiling at him and I before she grabbed my wrist and beginning to pull us towards the field entrance.

"We've got two more" the woman confidently shouted as she continued to pull Mihashi and me to the dugout. The woman wore and aqua looking training suit , she had dark brown hair and she also had milky white skin. It was only looking at her face when I was able to identify what made the large group of kids near the dugout so special, they were all boys in similar uniforms.

'My goodness is this the team?' I asked my self mentally as we got close to the group. Something else I noticed was the wildness of how the kid, Mihashi, started moving trying to escape the woman's hold as we reached the group. After we reached the group I was able to see her face, she had hazel eyes and big cheeks as well as a large, as is breast size large, chest out of nowhere she pulled out a little blue notebook.

"What're your names" She asked as she pulled out a pen and held it poised to write almost anything the two of us said.

"R-R-R-Ren Mihashi" Mihashi replied with a few hiccups in his voice, hearing this she turned towards me.

"I'm Thomas Devout, but my **friends** and **teammates** call me Thomas " I answered stressing teammates and friends as I opened my school bad and pulled out a little thing of Vaseline and smeared it on my lips.

"What positions do you two play?" she asked with a lot of enthusiasm in her voice.

"Pitcher" Mihashi answered, in a voice that sounded like he was ashamed to say that he played at all.

"I play Right field, Left field, Center field, Shortstop, First base, Third base, and Pitcher" I replied, hear the woman stop what she was doing and look at me in what I dared to call shock.

"What?" she asked still stunned.

"Your heard me I play Right field, Left field, Center field, Shortstop, First base, Third base, and Pitcher" I repeated all in order from what I'd played in my last year of middle school, quickly she began to write all the positions down.

"Well it's good that we have two pitchers and an all around player such as yourself, by the way what positions do you play best?" she asked looking at me again.

"Right field, First base, and Pitcher" I replied with my simplified answer.

"Well this is good we now have 11 players, we only have first years though" she said "I'm an alumni from the old rubber ball era and I'm the coach of this club". She proceeded to stick out her hand and do a strong hand shake with the two of us.

"My name is Momoe Maria but I'm not a teacher here so our supervising teacher is Shinga-sensei and he's over there" she said as she pointed towards a man sitting in the stands "And my dog who's finished his walk" and I noticed the dog sitting on the man's lap. The man looked to not be too tall but he did seem to have a pair of glasses and the dog which was on his lap had a scotch like fur color, but was a small little poodle mix at best.

"Okay let me check the line up one more time for a second" she said and entered a mental process like one I'd never seen. She, using her pen as a pointer, counted everything in the note book.

"Hey what middle school did you play for last year, I assume you're a freshman right" I asked as I turned towards Mihashi.

"You're right I am a Freshman and I played for Mihoshi Academy last year" Mihashi answered, the look in his eyes saying that it was an unpleasant memory that he'd rather not recall. As he looked down, seeming to go back into his own personal hell as he began to recall those memories he was trying so hard to subdue with all his mental might.

'Tall, skinny, dirty orange hair, dark brown eyes, skinny as a stick, mil white skin yep it has to be him, that poor kid who's catcher and for that matter his whole team sucked so bad that they blamed it all on him' I thought as I tapped him on his shoulder.

"I remember you, you pitched the game that my team won 14-0 against during the preseason and who we beat 10-0 in the middle of the season, and then a final time won 13-3 at the end of the season" I said, causing the boy to look at me with almost dread in his eyes. He looked like me as if he was expecting me to gloat for my team's success despite how I went 4 fo5 6 against him with a strike out,three run home run, a triple, a pop fly, a solo home run, and a two run single.

"Man I feel sorry for you, your team sucked" I said.

"Thanks" he said, his voice showing how degraded he felt.

"No not you your team, they sucked, I mean they showed no passion or want to win and plus you catcher he never showed you any signs why was that" I said, causing him to look at me with surprise.

"Well I wasn't that good" he said.

"Baloney, you made my team's best player look silly when you struck him out, you always struck out at lest 5 of our players and most teams couldn't strike out 2" I said giving him more praise. I wasn't lying I felt sorry for him, his pitches were amazing they were...weird but his team made his awesome pitching look very crappy. I felt so angry watching his team play I wanted to go out and say "Hey you morons this pitcher of yours is great, you should feel lucky to be on the same team as him because I wish I was, why don't you try to win or at least put in a different pitcher if you're so pathetic that you don't want to try!". But what good would that have done? So I kept my mouth shut an didn't do anything except watch us thrash his team in mercy rule games which he shouldn't have pitched in because he didn't deserve to be the victim of them.

"Well if this is how things are I don't want to play" a voice said and I turned to see who the owner was. Coach Momoe ran up to the boy she knew the voice was from and almost like child when they find out they can't go to a friends party asked "Why?".

"Three reason first if fat boy over there is going to play a fielding position then you can forget it second I won't play for a woman a girl can't coach a bunch of guys it's not possible and third I don't really feel like playing baseball anymore" the boy said in a stuck up style.

"Hey punk I know I'm big, I weigh 215 and every single kilo is muscle also if you haven't noticed I'm 6 foot so don't even go there" I fired back as I took a step towards him only to have Coach Momoe stick her arm out and look up at me with a casual smile.

"Okay you can go but first would you like some orange juice?" she said as she walked over to a bag of oranges holding one over an empty glass before squeezing all the juice out of it into the glass much to the shock of everyone, except me. She handed the boy the glass and he proceeded to drink the entire glass with fear in his eyes.

"Would anyone else like a glass?" she asked causing everyone to answer with "No", "No thanks", or "I think I'm allergic".

"I'll have some, nothing like orange juice in the morning" I answered and she squeezed me a glass before taking the sack of oranges to the dugout while this was going on I noticed there was a girl standing on the other side of the fence watching us out of nowhere Coach Momoe was back.

'How the heck does she move so fast?" I asked myself.

"Okay let's do role call" she said "first Mihashi",Mihashi looked up with a face that was more in shock that he was being called a name that wasn't in spite.

'What a quire kid?" I thought to myself.

"Devout" she called out.

"Here, but I go by Thomas" I replied and I saw her make a note.

"By the was speaking of pitchers we have a catcher Abe" Coach Momoe said and a medium height kid walked towards us. The kid had spikes black hair, brown eyes, and white skin and his eyes went big once he saw me as if he'd seen me somewhere before.

"I remember you, you were on that team that beat my team early last year" he said.

"Funny I don't remember you or know what you're talking about" I said back rather nonchalantly.

"Anyway will you go throw some practice pitches with these two?" Coach Momoe asked to which Abe nodded, this for some reason caused Mihashi to tear up.

"What's wrong?" Abe asked as he reached Mihashi.

"If we have to compete for the mound I'll defect, I'm no good the only reason I was the ace was because my grand father was the head of the school" Mihashi said.

"That's a lie this kid is awesome, you need to see him pitch plus I prefer to play in the field" I said causing everyone to notice me.

'Why am I sticking up for this kid? If I keep my mouth shut I could get to pitch easy, but doing that feels so wrong' I though to myself as Abe took that into consideration.

"Okay either way your performance and abilities will determine who gets to be the ace" Coach Momoe said, this caused me to breath a sigh of relief but Mihashi to slouch down as she walked away.

"What the heck is wrong with you?" I practically shouted at Mihashi causing him to cower "why are you trying to knock yourself out of the running to get a full time spot on the team?".

"So two annoying pitchers, one who's a loud mouth and one who won't give up the mound, and I have to pick which one to deal with as a started" Abe said rather nonchalantly "well I have a question about you guys what did you do in middle school".

"What?" I asked raising an eye brow.

"Do you have any experience?" Abe asked.

"Well I pitched in relief a few times and did a shut out once but my coach didn't let me play he wanted his son to get a lot of reps in so I don't have much in game experience" I replied, Abe nodded and turned towards Mihashi.

"How about you?" he asked.

"I was a starter" Mihashi muttered and Abe came up and patted him on the back.

"Good then we'll start with you" he said as he got the proved gear on. A few minutes later everyone formed a line behind Mihashi as he was on the mound and he proceeded to throw two perfect pitches right where Abe's glove was.

"Thomas you're up" Abe said and I walked up to the mound and saw him do the same thing that he did for Mihashi, set his glove up in the center of the strike zone.

'Don't blow this' I though to my self as I threw the ball and watched it curve down, but not enough to have Abe move the glove more than a millimeter.

"Good" Abe said as he threw the ball back to me and positioned his glove on the inside corner for a left handed batter.

'Throw there' I thought as I threw the ball and it curved perfectly to the catcher's mitt.

"Good, hey why don't we pit you two against some of these guys?" Abe said.

"Pick me!" one of the other boys said jumping up and down.

"Maybe next time Tajima" Abe said, causing Tajima to frown.

"Oh yeah well this sucks" Tajima shouted and walked towards the dugout.

"Hey you" Abe said pointing out the kid who'd said he wouldn't play earlier "Hanai why don't you be the batter, we won't need anyone except the infield on this so the rest of you guys can just hang out". Hearing this the guy who must've been Hanai began to look very pissed off and run off to get some gear while Abe took Mihashi and I to the dugout.

"So he'll do three at bats for both of you" Abe said as he sat in the dugout.

"Okay, but I have to warn you this won't be good" Mihashi moaned.

"Any ways you guys have any signs you know that you want to use from last year?" Abe asked.

"No, I don't think my catcher like me very much so I didn't have any" Mihashi replied looking as down as ever.

"Well like I said my coach didn't let me pitch much but when he did we had basic signs 1. Fastball, 2. Changeup, 3. Curveball, 4. Split Fingered Fastball, and 5. Knuckleball" I replied.

"Hear that Mihashi those are our signs until further notice let's trike Hanai out" Abe said.

"But I don't have any good experience" said trying to get out of this.

"Hey stick with me and you both will be deserving of the ace number" Abe said as he led Mihashi out of the dugout "Also don't shake me off I hate pitchers who do that". Once on the mound Mihashi showed that he clearly owned it, he proceeded to cause Hanai to ground out in his first at bat, pop out the second time, and strike out the third time, then it was my turn.

"Okay Abe ready when you are" Hanai said, a smile on his face clearly showing that he was expecting and easy three at bats from me because of my size.

'Okay Abe what first?' I thought as I saw his sign ' fast ball'. I stepped into the windup and threw the ball at Hanai, who watched it go by and had the ball be called a strike before Abe threw me the ball.

'What now?' I asked as Abe gave another sign, this time for a curve ball up in the zone. I went into the windup and threw the ball causing it to look like a ball but creep into the zone at the last second for a strike before getting the ball thrown back.

'Now what?' I though as Abe gave me the sign for a split fingered fastball, this pitch I threw with great relish and watched as Hanai was called out for a strike three. That pretty much summed up my time against Hanai he stuck out swinging at the second at bat on mu split fingered fastball again and on the third at bat he grounded out to Tajima on a curveball.

(Time skip to the end of practice)

"What's the big idea?" Hanai demanded as Mihashi and I walked towards the dugout.

"What do you mean?" I asked rather casually, hoping to jerk his chain.

"You know what!" he cried out before pointing to Mihashi "You you're pitch floats".

"What a floating pitch" a kid named Oki mocked.

"Excuses, Excuses" Tajima jeered.

"No I saw it the thing floated, and you" Hanai shouted before grabbing me by my shirt "your pitches do nothing but drop, even the strikes! what gives?". I "gently" pushed him off of me and turned around and began to walk home.

"I don't feel like telling you today, Maybe I'll squeal tomorrow" I lied as I walked towards the dorms.

'Well mom, dad maybe going here was a good idea after all, this whole team has a crap load of potential and I think we can really win' I thought to my self as I looked back before continuing to walk.


	2. Preseason

**Okiku Furikabutte is the property of Asa Higuchi, sadly I do not own the series. I do however own Thomas Devout, Bradley Grant, Alex Damian, Craig Foster and Johnny Griffin and all use of them without my permission in other fanfics will result in the story being flagged.**

**P.S Thank you for reading and enjoy!**

_Intro  
>(Bitter-Sweet)<em>

_The setting sun shone down upon the field at Robert Peary Middle School as the bottom of the final inning of the Tokyo Regional Middle School Baseball Tournament began. I sat motionless in the dugout entrance as I saw the first batter, Craig Foster, go down swinging on a sinking fastball from the opposing pitcher. Our school was an unusual one, not as in it had a bad record; just in the sense that the people who went there weren't normal, every single one of us were children of American ex-patriots. Glancing into the stands I saw scouts from high schools, I knew who there were here to scout and much to my displeasure I wasn't one of the two players lucky enough to get scouted. _

_"Thomas you're on deck" my coach said and I put on my batting helmet and grabbed my bat and batting gloves before getting into the on deck circle. I looked up at the score board and saw the score the away team, Hiroshi Middle School, led us by a score of 2-0, my attention was brought back to the game when I heard the call of "ball four" and saw the batter, Brad Grant, walk to first base. I walked to the plate and rolled the bat towards our dugout before taking a practice swing._

_"Okay Thomas let them walk you" coach yelled out from the third base coach's box and I simply nodded before turning around and rolling my eyes. It was like this every game Coach Matt only tried to get a few players noticed at all first his son Johnny Griffin, second our shortstop Brad Grant, and finally our pitcher Alex Damian. _

_'Ignore coach, wait till you get your first strike before you start to swing, just like in Little League" I thought to myself as I saw the pitcher go into his windup and throw the pitch._

_"Ball!" The umpire cried out and the catcher threw the ball back to the pitcher who threw his next pitch for a strike._

_'Okay now swing away' I though as I saw the pitcher go into his windup before throwing the ball. I stepped into it and swung, the loud clang of metal hitting solid leather and the ball dropped right before the right fielder who threw it to the cut off man as I reached 1st base. The next batter, Alex Damian, was put pitcher and had been forced to come in to relieve the Coach's son, Johnny, in the 4th inning after he'd had a very poor start to the game. _

_"Okay Alex lay one down" Coach Matt said as the pitcher threw the ball, doing so Alex proceeded to execute a bunt and the catcher ran forwards and picked it up._

_'Good he's going to throw Alex out and allow Brad and I to advance' I thought, but I saw the catcher get ready to throw to second instead._

_'Oh no he's going for the double play' I though as I suddenly sped up and slid into second, causing the shortstop to have to jump up to avoid me and catch the throw from the catcher... and miss it. The ball sailed into centerfield and seeing this Bradley rounded third base and scored making the score 2-1. The next person who walked to the plate was a pinch hitter, and the kid who had all the scouts gawking, Johnny Griffin. He walked up to the plate and oh so casually tipped his cap to the umpire before getting ready for the pitch, which came low on the inside for a ball._

_"Nice job Johnny" Coach Matt said clapping his hands, this intern caused me to roll my eyes, that's all he did push his son and tell the rest of us "average" players to sit down and watch. He never tried to better anyone but his son, especially when it came to me a kid who wanted to get better and show that in baseball it didn't matter how big you were all that mattered was if you could play or not. Even though I was only 14 I already weighed 200 kilos but despite that I could play, I could run and throw and hit just as good as a kid who weighed only 100 kilos. But I remember coach's first words at the first practice of the entire season "aren't you a little big to play baseball?" I'll be honest it pissed me off and that was my whole season and pretty much my life, I was too "big". I was too "big" to have friends, I was too "big" to be cool, I was too "big" to hang out with female friends, and I was too "big" to play sports and be good._

_The next pitch that came at him he watched go for a ball and he took a time out as he stepped outside the box and took a swing before stepping back into the batter's box. Another pitch came by and he let it go for a strike before stepping out of the batter's box , taking a practice swing, and stepping back into the batter's box. This time however he looked like he was ready to swing, the pitcher got this sign, went into his windup, and threw and Johnny swung. The loud sound of him making contact with the ball caused me to look at the ball and take a few steps from the bag and watching the ball sail over the centerfield fence for a walk off three run home run. I rounded third and touched home and watched Alex do the same before Johnny finally did so and we all gave him high fives, back slaps, and a pat on the head as we celebrated. After having our photos taken with the championship trophy I gathered my stuff and met my father at the stadium exit._

_"Hey dad what's for dinner?" I asked as I walked up to him._

_"I was going to let you pick, seeing how your team is the Tokyo regional champions" my father said before giving me a high five. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Johnny, Bradley, and Alex talking to a few scouts from different high schools before Johnny began to shake hands with the one from Tosei High School while Alex and Grant shook hands with the one from Mihoshi Academy. _

_'Well I guess I better just let it go and go to a high school that doesn't have a baseball club, I mean it's clear no one thinks I have the stuff to play baseball here and mom & dad aren't going to look into going home until the end of next summer' I thought to myself as I drove off towards the city and I began to pout over a bitter-sweet victory. _

Chapter 1  
>(Joining Nishiura)<p>

The bright afternoon sun shone down on the field at Nishiura High School covering every aspect of the almost perfect looking field softball or possibly baseball field. I stood looking at the field feeling the heat and the large amount of the sun on my skin, causing my skin to turn a darker shade of dark chocolate brown.

'Maybe I shouldn't have gone here, I mean watching girls play softball is worse than watching a game of high school baseball' I though to myself as I threw a very nonchalant glance over my shoulder and seeing the most unusual kid to my right. He had dirty orange hair and wore a uniform similar to mine, seeing how he was also looking at the field I walked over him to try to start a conversation.

"Hey" I said as I reached him he froze up, and slowly turned his head towards me.

"Yeah?" he asked, shaking for some reason.

"My name is Thomas Devout, but everyone calls me Thomas, what's yours" I said and stuck my hand out to conduct a hand shake, only to have the kid look at it uncertainly.

"What's the problem? Never done a hand shake before?" I asked as the boy hesitantly stuck his hand out.

"My name is Ren Mihashi" the boy said as he grasped my hand and gave me a handshake. Mihashi had bark brown eyes, which seemed to go with his dark orange hair, he also had almost milky white skin. Something else to be noted was despite having height on his side he was almost as thin as a stick.

"I saw you staring at the baseball field, do you play?" I asked as I turned back towards the field and kept looking at in only to notice a small amount of people near one of the dugouts. Out of nowhere I heard a yelp and turned to see Mihashi looking at woman who was cockily smiling at him and I before she grabbed my wrist and beginning to pull us towards the field entrance.

"We've got two more" the woman confidently shouted as she continued to pull Mihashi and me to the dugout. The woman wore and aqua looking training suit , she had dark brown hair and she also had milky white skin. It was only looking at her face when I was able to identify what made the large group of kids near the dugout so special, they were all boys in similar uniforms.

'My goodness is this the team?' I asked my self mentally as we got close to the group. Something else I noticed was the wildness of how the kid, Mihashi, started moving trying to escape the woman's hold as we reached the group. After we reached the group I was able to see her face, she had hazel eyes and big cheeks as well as a large, as is breast size large, chest out of nowhere she pulled out a little blue notebook.

"What're your names" She asked as she pulled out a pen and held it poised to write almost anything the two of us said.

"R-R-R-Ren Mihashi" Mihashi replied with a few hiccups in his voice, hearing this she turned towards me.

"I'm Thomas Devout, but my **friends** and **teammates** call me Thomas " I answered stressing teammates and friends as I opened my school bad and pulled out a little thing of Vaseline and smeared it on my lips.

"What positions do you two play?" she asked with a lot of enthusiasm in her voice.

"Pitcher" Mihashi answered, in a voice that sounded like he was ashamed to say that he played at all.

"I play Right field, Left field, Center field, Shortstop, First base, Third base, and Pitcher" I replied, hear the woman stop what she was doing and look at me in what I dared to call shock.

"What?" she asked still stunned.

"Your heard me I play Right field, Left field, Center field, Shortstop, First base, Third base, and Pitcher" I repeated all in order from what I'd played in my last year of middle school, quickly she began to write all the positions down.

"Well it's good that we have two pitchers and an all around player such as yourself, by the way what positions do you play best?" she asked looking at me again.

"Right field, First base, and Pitcher" I replied with my simplified answer.

"Well this is good we now have 11 players, we only have first years though" she said "I'm an alumni from the old rubber ball era and I'm the coach of this club". She proceeded to stick out her hand and do a strong hand shake with the two of us.

"My name is Momoe Maria but I'm not a teacher here so our supervising teacher is Shinga-sensei and he's over there" she said as she pointed towards a man sitting in the stands "And my dog who's finished his walk" and I noticed the dog sitting on the man's lap. The man looked to not be too tall but he did seem to have a pair of glasses and the dog which was on his lap had a scotch like fur color, but was a small little poodle mix at best.

"Okay let me check the line up one more time for a second" she said and entered a mental process like one I'd never seen. She, using her pen as a pointer, counted everything in the note book.

"Hey what middle school did you play for last year, I assume you're a freshman right" I asked as I turned towards Mihashi.

"You're right I am a Freshman and I played for Mihoshi Academy last year" Mihashi answered, the look in his eyes saying that it was an unpleasant memory that he'd rather not recall. As he looked down, seeming to go back into his own personal hell as he began to recall those memories he was trying so hard to subdue with all his mental might.

'Tall, skinny, dirty orange hair, dark brown eyes, skinny as a stick, mil white skin yep it has to be him, that poor kid who's catcher and for that matter his whole team sucked so bad that they blamed it all on him' I thought as I tapped him on his shoulder.

"I remember you, you pitched the game that my team won 14-0 against during the preseason and who we beat 10-0 in the middle of the season, and then a final time won 13-3 at the end of the season" I said, causing the boy to look at me with almost dread in his eyes. He looked like me as if he was expecting me to gloat for my team's success despite how I went 4 fo5 6 against him with a strike out,three run home run, a triple, a pop fly, a solo home run, and a two run single.

"Man I feel sorry for you, your team sucked" I said.

"Thanks" he said, his voice showing how degraded he felt.

"No not you your team, they sucked, I mean they showed no passion or want to win and plus you catcher he never showed you any signs why was that" I said, causing him to look at me with surprise.

"Well I wasn't that good" he said.

"Baloney, you made my team's best player look silly when you struck him out, you always struck out at lest 5 of our players and most teams couldn't strike out 2" I said giving him more praise. I wasn't lying I felt sorry for him, his pitches were amazing they were...weird but his team made his awesome pitching look very crappy. I felt so angry watching his team play I wanted to go out and say "Hey you morons this pitcher of yours is great, you should feel lucky to be on the same team as him because I wish I was, why don't you try to win or at least put in a different pitcher if you're so pathetic that you don't want to try!". But what good would that have done? So I kept my mouth shut an didn't do anything except watch us thrash his team in mercy rule games which he shouldn't have pitched in because he didn't deserve to be the victim of them.

"Well if this is how things are I don't want to play" a voice said and I turned to see who the owner was. Coach Momoe ran up to the boy she knew the voice was from and almost like child when they find out they can't go to a friends party asked "Why?".

"Three reason first if fat boy over there is going to play a fielding position then you can forget it second I won't play for a woman a girl can't coach a bunch of guys it's not possible and third I don't really feel like playing baseball anymore" the boy said in a stuck up style.

"Hey punk I know I'm big, I weigh 215 and every single kilo is muscle also if you haven't noticed I'm 6 foot so don't even go there" I fired back as I took a step towards him only to have Coach Momoe stick her arm out and look up at me with a casual smile.

"Okay you can go but first would you like some orange juice?" she said as she walked over to a bag of oranges holding one over an empty glass before squeezing all the juice out of it into the glass much to the shock of everyone, except me. She handed the boy the glass and he proceeded to drink the entire glass with fear in his eyes.

"Would anyone else like a glass?" she asked causing everyone to answer with "No", "No thanks", or "I think I'm allergic".

"I'll have some, nothing like orange juice in the morning" I answered and she squeezed me a glass before taking the sack of oranges to the dugout while this was going on I noticed there was a girl standing on the other side of the fence watching us out of nowhere Coach Momoe was back.

'How the heck does she move so fast?" I asked myself.

"Okay let's do role call" she said "first Mihashi",Mihashi looked up with a face that was more in shock that he was being called a name that wasn't in spite.

'What a quire kid?" I thought to myself.

"Devout" she called out.

"Here, but I go by Thomas" I replied and I saw her make a note.

"By the was speaking of pitchers we have a catcher Abe" Coach Momoe said and a medium height kid walked towards us. The kid had spikes black hair, brown eyes, and white skin and his eyes went big once he saw me as if he'd seen me somewhere before.

"I remember you, you were on that team that beat my team early last year" he said.

"Funny I don't remember you or know what you're talking about" I said back rather nonchalantly.

"Anyway will you go throw some practice pitches with these two?" Coach Momoe asked to which Abe nodded, this for some reason caused Mihashi to tear up.

"What's wrong?" Abe asked as he reached Mihashi.

"If we have to compete for the mound I'll defect, I'm no good the only reason I was the ace was because my grand father was the head of the school" Mihashi said.

"That's a lie this kid is awesome, you need to see him pitch plus I prefer to play in the field" I said causing everyone to notice me.

'Why am I sticking up for this kid? If I keep my mouth shut I could get to pitch easy, but doing that feels so wrong' I though to myself as Abe took that into consideration.

"Okay either way your performance and abilities will determine who gets to be the ace" Coach Momoe said, this caused me to breath a sigh of relief but Mihashi to slouch down as she walked away.

"What the heck is wrong with you?" I practically shouted at Mihashi causing him to cower "why are you trying to knock yourself out of the running to get a full time spot on the team?".

"So two annoying pitchers, one who's a loud mouth and one who won't give up the mound, and I have to pick which one to deal with as a started" Abe said rather nonchalantly "well I have a question about you guys what did you do in middle school".

"What?" I asked raising an eye brow.

"Do you have any experience?" Abe asked.

"Well I pitched in relief a few times and did a shut out once but my coach didn't let me play he wanted his son to get a lot of reps in so I don't have much in game experience" I replied, Abe nodded and turned towards Mihashi.

"How about you?" he asked.

"I was a starter" Mihashi muttered and Abe came up and patted him on the back.

"Good then we'll start with you" he said as he got the proved gear on. A few minutes later everyone formed a line behind Mihashi as he was on the mound and he proceeded to throw two perfect pitches right where Abe's glove was.

"Thomas you're up" Abe said and I walked up to the mound and saw him do the same thing that he did for Mihashi, set his glove up in the center of the strike zone.

'Don't blow this' I though to my self as I threw the ball and watched it curve down, but not enough to have Abe move the glove more than a millimeter.

"Good" Abe said as he threw the ball back to me and positioned his glove on the inside corner for a left handed batter.

'Throw there' I thought as I threw the ball and it curved perfectly to the catcher's mitt.

"Good, hey why don't we pit you two against some of these guys?" Abe said.

"Pick me!" one of the other boys said jumping up and down.

"Maybe next time Tajima" Abe said, causing Tajima to frown.

"Oh yeah well this sucks" Tajima shouted and walked towards the dugout.

"Hey you" Abe said pointing out the kid who'd said he wouldn't play earlier "Hanai why don't you be the batter, we won't need anyone except the infield on this so the rest of you guys can just hang out". Hearing this the guy who must've been Hanai began to look very pissed off and run off to get some gear while Abe took Mihashi and I to the dugout.

"So he'll do three at bats for both of you" Abe said as he sat in the dugout.

"Okay, but I have to warn you this won't be good" Mihashi moaned.

"Any ways you guys have any signs you know that you want to use from last year?" Abe asked.

"No, I don't think my catcher like me very much so I didn't have any" Mihashi replied looking as down as ever.

"Well like I said my coach didn't let me pitch much but when he did we had basic signs 1. Fastball, 2. Changeup, 3. Curveball, 4. Split Fingered Fastball, and 5. Knuckleball" I replied.

"Hear that Mihashi those are our signs until further notice let's trike Hanai out" Abe said.

"But I don't have any good experience" said trying to get out of this.

"Hey stick with me and you both will be deserving of the ace number" Abe said as he led Mihashi out of the dugout "Also don't shake me off I hate pitchers who do that". Once on the mound Mihashi showed that he clearly owned it, he proceeded to cause Hanai to ground out in his first at bat, pop out the second time, and strike out the third time, then it was my turn.

"Okay Abe ready when you are" Hanai said, a smile on his face clearly showing that he was expecting and easy three at bats from me because of my size.

'Okay Abe what first?' I thought as I saw his sign ' fast ball'. I stepped into the windup and threw the ball at Hanai, who watched it go by and had the ball be called a strike before Abe threw me the ball.

'What now?' I asked as Abe gave another sign, this time for a curve ball up in the zone. I went into the windup and threw the ball causing it to look like a ball but creep into the zone at the last second for a strike before getting the ball thrown back.

'Now what?' I though as Abe gave me the sign for a split fingered fastball, this pitch I threw with great relish and watched as Hanai was called out for a strike three. That pretty much summed up my time against Hanai he stuck out swinging at the second at bat on mu split fingered fastball again and on the third at bat he grounded out to Tajima on a curveball.

(Time skip to the end of practice)

"What's the big idea?" Hanai demanded as Mihashi and I walked towards the dugout.

"What do you mean?" I asked rather casually, hoping to jerk his chain.

"You know what!" he cried out before pointing to Mihashi "You you're pitch floats".

"What a floating pitch" a kid named Oki mocked.

"Excuses, Excuses" Tajima jeered.

"No I saw it the thing floated, and you" Hanai shouted before grabbing me by my shirt "your pitches do nothing but drop, even the strikes! what gives?". I "gently" pushed him off of me and turned around and began to walk home.

"I don't feel like telling you today, Maybe I'll squeal tomorrow" I lied as I walked towards the dorms.

'Well mom, dad maybe going here was a good idea after all, this whole team has a crap load of potential and I think we can really win' I thought to my self as I looked back before continuing to walk.

Chapter 2

The bright sun shone through the bus' windows as we drove down the long road that would lead us to our training area where we would spend a few days before playing our first practice game of the year. I sat in the back of the bus listening to an audio book, an Agatha Christie murder mystery, while I stared out of the window watching the scenery go speeding by. I'd come to the back of the bus for two reasons, first because I though it's be nice and quiet and second because I saw Mihashi there and though the poor kid could use some company. A slight bump caused me to look up and see Abe sitting down next to Mihashi and take of my head phones and pause my audio book.

"Hey Abe" I said, suddenly noticing how sick Mihashi looked.

"Hey Mihashi you car sick?" I asked only to receive a nod from him.

"If you knew you get car sick you should've taken these before we began the drive" Abe said as he handed Mihashi a couple of pills, which Mihashi swallowed and took a swig of water.

"I don't usually get car sick, it's just I don't get too much sleep these days" he said lowering his heard " You heard what she said 'if I don't clean up my act she won't let me pitch' at all but every time I think of it I..." As he said this Mihashi began to cry and his tears slid down his face. It would be bad if he couldn't pitch, for him and for me, mainly because if I pitched too long the opposing team would quickly catch on and start to pulverize me and my team.

"Come on man, I know you're gonna pitch" I said, trying to calm Mihashi down.

'Gosh he's such a push over, if I wanted to be a jerk to him not only could I do it but he'd probably try to keep me out of trouble' I thought to my self and looked over at Abe and saw the disapproval in his eyes.

'But still with him as your catcher who wouldn't be intimidated' I though as I put my ear buds back in my ears and resumed listening to my book. A few hours later the bus reached the camp ground and we all got off the bus and were handed buckets by Mr. Shiga.

"Alright we'll need to gather plants that are edible for dinner, so split up into small groups and head out" he said and the rest of the team began to disperse into smaller groups, some asking him for specifics on what plants to gather while others just went ahead.

"Abe, Mihashi, Thomas" Coach Momoe said, signaling us to some over "sorry but you guys have a different program a head". With that she lead us down a skinny windy path to a baseball field, which was in superb condition.

"This field is owned by the local village and I managed to get permission to practice it in exchange for help in the forest, which is good because we can practice and get stronger from all the manual labor" Coach Momoe said as the three of us either sat or stood watching with our gear.

"Mihashi how fast do you think you can throw?" Coach Momoe asked.

"Let's see ... um about 100 maybe 101" Mihashi replied this caused Coach Momoe to begin to laugh.

"100 that's so lame" she said laughing causing Mihashi to seemingly deflate.

" How about you Thomas?" Coach Momoe asked trying to recover form her laughter.

"110 maybe 115, my thing is mainly velocity, placement, and my sinking split finger fastball" I replied causing Coach Momoe to give me a strange look.

"What? I told you my middle school coach didn't let me pitch a lot so I haven't gotten that much practice outside of throwing 85 pitches everyday with my dad" I said as I pulled out my glove.

"Well how about I give it a throw" she said giving Mihashi the pitch measurement device before walked to the mound and allowed Abe to get set before she threw the ball.

"Wow 122" Mihashi said as he stood looking at the pitch speed measuring device.

"Wait till I get warmed up I can probably add another 2 or 3 k" she said as she walked towards Mihashi.

"Th-Th-That was awesome!" Mihashi said marveling at the speed.

"Please Mihashi you can throw just as hard as me" Coach Momoe replied before turning to me "and you should be throwing harder". Coach handed Mihashi a 5 kilogram dumbbell before telling him to throw a pitch which he did, except it was wild and sailed into the back stop, much to Abe's disgust.

"Good Mihashi you gained 10 k on that throw now keep practicing this until you can do it correctly" she said.

"We don't need a wild pitcher, he's fine!" Abe replied, irritation clearly in his voice.

"Your right we don't need one" Coach Momoe said before casting a glance my way.

"Wait you want both of our pitchers to be out of control?" Abe said his anger so thick in his voice you could almost smell it.

"No I want both our pitcher to get faster, but this can only be done with practice so I want both of you to not throw any more pitches until you feel comfortable going from your windups" she said "oh and one more thing Mihashi, I called Mihoshi Academy trying to set up a game but they couldn't send the first team so they sent their B freshmen team" . Upon hearing this Mihashi began to sweat bullets, I don't mean pee shooter bullet's I mean 50 cal. bullets and he was sweating them faster than they could be fired by the actual gun.

"That's right we'll be playing the team that hates your guts" Coach Momoe said with a disturbingly large smile on her face.

"Uh Coach isn't that bad?" I asked putting as much emphasis on bad as possible.

"Nope any way have fun" she said walking off giving the aura of a person who'd given us tickets to Disneyland when it was more like she'd given us a choice between killing each other or being killed.

'What's wrong with that woman' I thought to myself as I picked up my glove.

"BY the way what's with your glove" Abe asked causing me to examine it.

"Oh this? Well this was my dad's old softball mitt and I use it now as a sort of dedication to him" I replied.

"But isn't the passing worn through?" Abe asked crossing his arms.

"Yeah but that's why I use the webbing when I catch balls" I replied as I punched the webbing of the glove.

"How am I supposed to get better with that hanging over my head ?" Mihashi asked as he began to sob again.

"Look having you two pitch at lest 130 would be great but it's okay neither of you are meant to be fast ball pitchers, your control pitchers" Abe replied back.

"NO! I'm sick of pitching slow" Mihashi said as he went back towards the mound.

"Hay wait a minute if you mess with your mechanics there's not turning back" Abe said as Mihashi went towards the mound "hey are you even listening to me".

"Abe" I said causing him to turn around and show me that he was truly on his last nerve "Abe listen just let Mihashi be well... Mihashi he'll learn eventually".

"Yeah but will it be too late?" Abe muttered back towards me as he went back to the plat and began some sort of warm up. We spent the next few hours practicing our windups and seeing how pissed off Abe could get at how much of a push over Mihashi was, I have never seen any one so angry in my life. When we began our long walk back to the cabin it was already dark and from the sounds inside of the cabin they were no doubt making dinner and opened the door just in time to hear Mr. Shiga's lecture on the hormones in the brain, I didn't really pay attention I have a natural ability to block out things I don't give a crap about. Before I knew it I was sitting at the dinner table and before me was a large array of food.

"Now say it, 'It looks great'" Mr. Shiga said.

"It looks great" We all yelled.

"It looks great" Mr. Shiga said, repeating himself.

"It looks great" We replied.

'It also smells great' I thought to myself.

"Thank you for the food" Coach Momoe said, giving a small bow.

"Thank you for the food" we all repeated before digging in and eating all of the food we could stomach and then some, at least in my case. After dinner we all returned to our separate rooms in the cabin and began to lay out or small futon mattresses. My room had Oki, Hani , Tajima, Mihashi, and I in it and we were all trying to find a place to put our stuff.

"Hey you don't, you don't think Coach Momoe and Shiga sensei are you know... dating right?" Hani asked causing everyone, except Tajima and me to cast a feeling of dread looking like they were sick.

"I think I just threw up in my mouth" some one whispered.

"Yeah me too" another chimed in.

"Wait, what?" Tajima asked completely oblivious to what they were implying.

"Come on guys my dad was 43 when he got married, don't be so dumb" I said as I laid out my futon and began to get ready to sleep.

"Hey isn't this room a little small for five people?" Oki asked causing almost everyone to look around. At that exact moment Mr. Shiga come in and lid out his own futon telling us to remember the positive things that we'd done today before going to sleep.

"Wait Shiga-sensei there isn't enough futons here for everyone" Oki said.

"Your right but the fact is the only way a human can truly bond with another human is by sharing a bed" Mr. Shiga said causing every one to move back in shock "that's why I want everyone one of you to share a futon with a different player every night-". He was cut off by Hanai pelting him in the face with a pillow which in turn caused everyone to go silent.

"That's sick" Hanai said only to get nailed in the face by Mr. Shiga and in total cause a huge pillow fight to erupt for a hour or so, in the end I was the only one who didn't have to share a futon, and I can only guess my size fueled that.

'I hope I can sleep tonight, I haven't been in this tight of a sleeping space since Boys Scouts" I though to myself as I slowly began to doze off to the sound of my snoring teammates.


	3. Preface Prep

**Okiku Furikabutte is the property of Asa Higuchi, sadly I do not own the series. I do however own Thomas Devout, Bradley Grant, Alex Damian, Craig Foster and Johnny Griffin and all use of them without my permission in other fanfics will result in the story being flagged.**

**P.S Thank you for reading and enjoy!**

_Intro  
>(Bitter-Sweet)<em>

_The setting sun shone down upon the field at Robert Peary Middle School as the bottom of the final inning of the Tokyo Regional Middle School Baseball Tournament began. I sat motionless in the dugout entrance as I saw the first batter, Craig Foster, go down swinging on a sinking fastball from the opposing pitcher. Our school was an unusual one, not as in it had a bad record; just in the sense that the people who went there weren't normal, every single one of us were children of American ex-patriots. Glancing into the stands I saw scouts from high schools, I knew who there were here to scout and much to my displeasure I wasn't one of the two players lucky enough to get scouted. _

_"Thomas you're on deck" my coach said and I put on my batting helmet and grabbed my bat and batting gloves before getting into the on deck circle. I looked up at the score board and saw the score the away team, Hiroshi Middle School, led us by a score of 2-0, my attention was brought back to the game when I heard the call of "ball four" and saw the batter, Brad Grant, walk to first base. I walked to the plate and rolled the bat towards our dugout before taking a practice swing._

_"Okay Thomas let them walk you" coach yelled out from the third base coach's box and I simply nodded before turning around and rolling my eyes. It was like this every game Coach Matt only tried to get a few players noticed at all first his son Johnny Griffin, second our shortstop Brad Grant, and finally our pitcher Alex Damian. _

_'Ignore coach, wait till you get your first strike before you start to swing, just like in Little League" I thought to myself as I saw the pitcher go into his windup and throw the pitch._

_"Ball!" The umpire cried out and the catcher threw the ball back to the pitcher who threw his next pitch for a strike._

_'Okay now swing away' I though as I saw the pitcher go into his windup before throwing the ball. I stepped into it and swung, the loud clang of metal hitting solid leather and the ball dropped right before the right fielder who threw it to the cut off man as I reached 1st base. The next batter, Alex Damian, was put pitcher and had been forced to come in to relieve the Coach's son, Johnny, in the 4th inning after he'd had a very poor start to the game. _

_"Okay Alex lay one down" Coach Matt said as the pitcher threw the ball, doing so Alex proceeded to execute a bunt and the catcher ran forwards and picked it up._

_'Good he's going to throw Alex out and allow Brad and I to advance' I thought, but I saw the catcher get ready to throw to second instead._

_'Oh no he's going for the double play' I though as I suddenly sped up and slid into second, causing the shortstop to have to jump up to avoid me and catch the throw from the catcher... and miss it. The ball sailed into centerfield and seeing this Bradley rounded third base and scored making the score 2-1. The next person who walked to the plate was a pinch hitter, and the kid who had all the scouts gawking, Johnny Griffin. He walked up to the plate and oh so casually tipped his cap to the umpire before getting ready for the pitch, which came low on the inside for a ball._

_"Nice job Johnny" Coach Matt said clapping his hands, this intern caused me to roll my eyes, that's all he did push his son and tell the rest of us "average" players to sit down and watch. He never tried to better anyone but his son, especially when it came to me a kid who wanted to get better and show that in baseball it didn't matter how big you were all that mattered was if you could play or not. Even though I was only 14 I already weighed 200 kilos but despite that I could play, I could run and throw and hit just as good as a kid who weighed only 100 kilos. But I remember coach's first words at the first practice of the entire season "aren't you a little big to play baseball?" I'll be honest it pissed me off and that was my whole season and pretty much my life, I was too "big". I was too "big" to have friends, I was too "big" to be cool, I was too "big" to hang out with female friends, and I was too "big" to play sports and be good._

_The next pitch that came at him he watched go for a ball and he took a time out as he stepped outside the box and took a swing before stepping back into the batter's box. Another pitch came by and he let it go for a strike before stepping out of the batter's box , taking a practice swing, and stepping back into the batter's box. This time however he looked like he was ready to swing, the pitcher got this sign, went into his windup, and threw and Johnny swung. The loud sound of him making contact with the ball caused me to look at the ball and take a few steps from the bag and watching the ball sail over the centerfield fence for a walk off three run home run. I rounded third and touched home and watched Alex do the same before Johnny finally did so and we all gave him high fives, back slaps, and a pat on the head as we celebrated. After having our photos taken with the championship trophy I gathered my stuff and met my father at the stadium exit._

_"Hey dad what's for dinner?" I asked as I walked up to him._

_"I was going to let you pick, seeing how your team is the Tokyo regional champions" my father said before giving me a high five. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Johnny, Bradley, and Alex talking to a few scouts from different high schools before Johnny began to shake hands with the one from Tosei High School while Alex and Grant shook hands with the one from Mihoshi Academy. _

_'Well I guess I better just let it go and go to a high school that doesn't have a baseball club, I mean it's clear no one thinks I have the stuff to play baseball here and mom & dad aren't going to look into going home until the end of next summer' I thought to myself as I drove off towards the city and I began to pout over a bitter-sweet victory. _

Chapter 1  
>(Joining Nishiura)<p>

The bright afternoon sun shone down on the field at Nishiura High School covering every aspect of the almost perfect looking field softball or possibly baseball field. I stood looking at the field feeling the heat and the large amount of the sun on my skin, causing my skin to turn a darker shade of dark chocolate brown.

'Maybe I shouldn't have gone here, I mean watching girls play softball is worse than watching a game of high school baseball' I though to myself as I threw a very nonchalant glance over my shoulder and seeing the most unusual kid to my right. He had dirty orange hair and wore a uniform similar to mine, seeing how he was also looking at the field I walked over him to try to start a conversation.

"Hey" I said as I reached him he froze up, and slowly turned his head towards me.

"Yeah?" he asked, shaking for some reason.

"My name is Thomas Devout, but everyone calls me Thomas, what's yours" I said and stuck my hand out to conduct a hand shake, only to have the kid look at it uncertainly.

"What's the problem? Never done a hand shake before?" I asked as the boy hesitantly stuck his hand out.

"My name is Ren Mihashi" the boy said as he grasped my hand and gave me a handshake. Mihashi had bark brown eyes, which seemed to go with his dark orange hair, he also had almost milky white skin. Something else to be noted was despite having height on his side he was almost as thin as a stick.

"I saw you staring at the baseball field, do you play?" I asked as I turned back towards the field and kept looking at in only to notice a small amount of people near one of the dugouts. Out of nowhere I heard a yelp and turned to see Mihashi looking at woman who was cockily smiling at him and I before she grabbed my wrist and beginning to pull us towards the field entrance.

"We've got two more" the woman confidently shouted as she continued to pull Mihashi and me to the dugout. The woman wore and aqua looking training suit , she had dark brown hair and she also had milky white skin. It was only looking at her face when I was able to identify what made the large group of kids near the dugout so special, they were all boys in similar uniforms.

'My goodness is this the team?' I asked my self mentally as we got close to the group. Something else I noticed was the wildness of how the kid, Mihashi, started moving trying to escape the woman's hold as we reached the group. After we reached the group I was able to see her face, she had hazel eyes and big cheeks as well as a large, as is breast size large, chest out of nowhere she pulled out a little blue notebook.

"What're your names" She asked as she pulled out a pen and held it poised to write almost anything the two of us said.

"R-R-R-Ren Mihashi" Mihashi replied with a few hiccups in his voice, hearing this she turned towards me.

"I'm Thomas Devout, but my **friends** and **teammates** call me Thomas " I answered stressing teammates and friends as I opened my school bad and pulled out a little thing of Vaseline and smeared it on my lips.

"What positions do you two play?" she asked with a lot of enthusiasm in her voice.

"Pitcher" Mihashi answered, in a voice that sounded like he was ashamed to say that he played at all.

"I play Right field, Left field, Center field, Shortstop, First base, Third base, and Pitcher" I replied, hear the woman stop what she was doing and look at me in what I dared to call shock.

"What?" she asked still stunned.

"Your heard me I play Right field, Left field, Center field, Shortstop, First base, Third base, and Pitcher" I repeated all in order from what I'd played in my last year of middle school, quickly she began to write all the positions down.

"Well it's good that we have two pitchers and an all around player such as yourself, by the way what positions do you play best?" she asked looking at me again.

"Right field, First base, and Pitcher" I replied with my simplified answer.

"Well this is good we now have 11 players, we only have first years though" she said "I'm an alumni from the old rubber ball era and I'm the coach of this club". She proceeded to stick out her hand and do a strong hand shake with the two of us.

"My name is Momoe Maria but I'm not a teacher here so our supervising teacher is Shinga-sensei and he's over there" she said as she pointed towards a man sitting in the stands "And my dog who's finished his walk" and I noticed the dog sitting on the man's lap. The man looked to not be too tall but he did seem to have a pair of glasses and the dog which was on his lap had a scotch like fur color, but was a small little poodle mix at best.

"Okay let me check the line up one more time for a second" she said and entered a mental process like one I'd never seen. She, using her pen as a pointer, counted everything in the note book.

"Hey what middle school did you play for last year, I assume you're a freshman right" I asked as I turned towards Mihashi.

"You're right I am a Freshman and I played for Mihoshi Academy last year" Mihashi answered, the look in his eyes saying that it was an unpleasant memory that he'd rather not recall. As he looked down, seeming to go back into his own personal hell as he began to recall those memories he was trying so hard to subdue with all his mental might.

'Tall, skinny, dirty orange hair, dark brown eyes, skinny as a stick, mil white skin yep it has to be him, that poor kid who's catcher and for that matter his whole team sucked so bad that they blamed it all on him' I thought as I tapped him on his shoulder.

"I remember you, you pitched the game that my team won 14-0 against during the preseason and who we beat 10-0 in the middle of the season, and then a final time won 13-3 at the end of the season" I said, causing the boy to look at me with almost dread in his eyes. He looked like me as if he was expecting me to gloat for my team's success despite how I went 4 fo5 6 against him with a strike out,three run home run, a triple, a pop fly, a solo home run, and a two run single.

"Man I feel sorry for you, your team sucked" I said.

"Thanks" he said, his voice showing how degraded he felt.

"No not you your team, they sucked, I mean they showed no passion or want to win and plus you catcher he never showed you any signs why was that" I said, causing him to look at me with surprise.

"Well I wasn't that good" he said.

"Baloney, you made my team's best player look silly when you struck him out, you always struck out at lest 5 of our players and most teams couldn't strike out 2" I said giving him more praise. I wasn't lying I felt sorry for him, his pitches were amazing they were...weird but his team made his awesome pitching look very crappy. I felt so angry watching his team play I wanted to go out and say "Hey you morons this pitcher of yours is great, you should feel lucky to be on the same team as him because I wish I was, why don't you try to win or at least put in a different pitcher if you're so pathetic that you don't want to try!". But what good would that have done? So I kept my mouth shut an didn't do anything except watch us thrash his team in mercy rule games which he shouldn't have pitched in because he didn't deserve to be the victim of them.

"Well if this is how things are I don't want to play" a voice said and I turned to see who the owner was. Coach Momoe ran up to the boy she knew the voice was from and almost like child when they find out they can't go to a friends party asked "Why?".

"Three reason first if fat boy over there is going to play a fielding position then you can forget it second I won't play for a woman a girl can't coach a bunch of guys it's not possible and third I don't really feel like playing baseball anymore" the boy said in a stuck up style.

"Hey punk I know I'm big, I weigh 215 and every single kilo is muscle also if you haven't noticed I'm 6 foot so don't even go there" I fired back as I took a step towards him only to have Coach Momoe stick her arm out and look up at me with a casual smile.

"Okay you can go but first would you like some orange juice?" she said as she walked over to a bag of oranges holding one over an empty glass before squeezing all the juice out of it into the glass much to the shock of everyone, except me. She handed the boy the glass and he proceeded to drink the entire glass with fear in his eyes.

"Would anyone else like a glass?" she asked causing everyone to answer with "No", "No thanks", or "I think I'm allergic".

"I'll have some, nothing like orange juice in the morning" I answered and she squeezed me a glass before taking the sack of oranges to the dugout while this was going on I noticed there was a girl standing on the other side of the fence watching us out of nowhere Coach Momoe was back.

'How the heck does she move so fast?" I asked myself.

"Okay let's do role call" she said "first Mihashi",Mihashi looked up with a face that was more in shock that he was being called a name that wasn't in spite.

'What a quire kid?" I thought to myself.

"Devout" she called out.

"Here, but I go by Thomas" I replied and I saw her make a note.

"By the was speaking of pitchers we have a catcher Abe" Coach Momoe said and a medium height kid walked towards us. The kid had spikes black hair, brown eyes, and white skin and his eyes went big once he saw me as if he'd seen me somewhere before.

"I remember you, you were on that team that beat my team early last year" he said.

"Funny I don't remember you or know what you're talking about" I said back rather nonchalantly.

"Anyway will you go throw some practice pitches with these two?" Coach Momoe asked to which Abe nodded, this for some reason caused Mihashi to tear up.

"What's wrong?" Abe asked as he reached Mihashi.

"If we have to compete for the mound I'll defect, I'm no good the only reason I was the ace was because my grand father was the head of the school" Mihashi said.

"That's a lie this kid is awesome, you need to see him pitch plus I prefer to play in the field" I said causing everyone to notice me.

'Why am I sticking up for this kid? If I keep my mouth shut I could get to pitch easy, but doing that feels so wrong' I though to myself as Abe took that into consideration.

"Okay either way your performance and abilities will determine who gets to be the ace" Coach Momoe said, this caused me to breath a sigh of relief but Mihashi to slouch down as she walked away.

"What the heck is wrong with you?" I practically shouted at Mihashi causing him to cower "why are you trying to knock yourself out of the running to get a full time spot on the team?".

"So two annoying pitchers, one who's a loud mouth and one who won't give up the mound, and I have to pick which one to deal with as a started" Abe said rather nonchalantly "well I have a question about you guys what did you do in middle school".

"What?" I asked raising an eye brow.

"Do you have any experience?" Abe asked.

"Well I pitched in relief a few times and did a shut out once but my coach didn't let me play he wanted his son to get a lot of reps in so I don't have much in game experience" I replied, Abe nodded and turned towards Mihashi.

"How about you?" he asked.

"I was a starter" Mihashi muttered and Abe came up and patted him on the back.

"Good then we'll start with you" he said as he got the proved gear on. A few minutes later everyone formed a line behind Mihashi as he was on the mound and he proceeded to throw two perfect pitches right where Abe's glove was.

"Thomas you're up" Abe said and I walked up to the mound and saw him do the same thing that he did for Mihashi, set his glove up in the center of the strike zone.

'Don't blow this' I though to my self as I threw the ball and watched it curve down, but not enough to have Abe move the glove more than a millimeter.

"Good" Abe said as he threw the ball back to me and positioned his glove on the inside corner for a left handed batter.

'Throw there' I thought as I threw the ball and it curved perfectly to the catcher's mitt.

"Good, hey why don't we pit you two against some of these guys?" Abe said.

"Pick me!" one of the other boys said jumping up and down.

"Maybe next time Tajima" Abe said, causing Tajima to frown.

"Oh yeah well this sucks" Tajima shouted and walked towards the dugout.

"Hey you" Abe said pointing out the kid who'd said he wouldn't play earlier "Hanai why don't you be the batter, we won't need anyone except the infield on this so the rest of you guys can just hang out". Hearing this the guy who must've been Hanai began to look very pissed off and run off to get some gear while Abe took Mihashi and I to the dugout.

"So he'll do three at bats for both of you" Abe said as he sat in the dugout.

"Okay, but I have to warn you this won't be good" Mihashi moaned.

"Any ways you guys have any signs you know that you want to use from last year?" Abe asked.

"No, I don't think my catcher like me very much so I didn't have any" Mihashi replied looking as down as ever.

"Well like I said my coach didn't let me pitch much but when he did we had basic signs 1. Fastball, 2. Changeup, 3. Curveball, 4. Split Fingered Fastball, and 5. Knuckleball" I replied.

"Hear that Mihashi those are our signs until further notice let's trike Hanai out" Abe said.

"But I don't have any good experience" said trying to get out of this.

"Hey stick with me and you both will be deserving of the ace number" Abe said as he led Mihashi out of the dugout "Also don't shake me off I hate pitchers who do that". Once on the mound Mihashi showed that he clearly owned it, he proceeded to cause Hanai to ground out in his first at bat, pop out the second time, and strike out the third time, then it was my turn.

"Okay Abe ready when you are" Hanai said, a smile on his face clearly showing that he was expecting and easy three at bats from me because of my size.

'Okay Abe what first?' I thought as I saw his sign ' fast ball'. I stepped into the windup and threw the ball at Hanai, who watched it go by and had the ball be called a strike before Abe threw me the ball.

'What now?' I asked as Abe gave another sign, this time for a curve ball up in the zone. I went into the windup and threw the ball causing it to look like a ball but creep into the zone at the last second for a strike before getting the ball thrown back.

'Now what?' I though as Abe gave me the sign for a split fingered fastball, this pitch I threw with great relish and watched as Hanai was called out for a strike three. That pretty much summed up my time against Hanai he stuck out swinging at the second at bat on mu split fingered fastball again and on the third at bat he grounded out to Tajima on a curveball.

(Time skip to the end of practice)

"What's the big idea?" Hanai demanded as Mihashi and I walked towards the dugout.

"What do you mean?" I asked rather casually, hoping to jerk his chain.

"You know what!" he cried out before pointing to Mihashi "You you're pitch floats".

"What a floating pitch" a kid named Oki mocked.

"Excuses, Excuses" Tajima jeered.

"No I saw it the thing floated, and you" Hanai shouted before grabbing me by my shirt "your pitches do nothing but drop, even the strikes! what gives?". I "gently" pushed him off of me and turned around and began to walk home.

"I don't feel like telling you today, Maybe I'll squeal tomorrow" I lied as I walked towards the dorms.

'Well mom, dad maybe going here was a good idea after all, this whole team has a crap load of potential and I think we can really win' I thought to my self as I looked back before continuing to walk.

Chapter 2

The bright sun shone through the bus' windows as we drove down the long road that would lead us to our training area where we would spend a few days before playing our first practice game of the year. I sat in the back of the bus listening to an audio book, an Agatha Christie murder mystery, while I stared out of the window watching the scenery go speeding by. I'd come to the back of the bus for two reasons, first because I though it's be nice and quiet and second because I saw Mihashi there and though the poor kid could use some company. A slight bump caused me to look up and see Abe sitting down next to Mihashi and take of my head phones and pause my audio book.

"Hey Abe" I said, suddenly noticing how sick Mihashi looked.

"Hey Mihashi you car sick?" I asked only to receive a nod from him.

"If you knew you get car sick you should've taken these before we began the drive" Abe said as he handed Mihashi a couple of pills, which Mihashi swallowed and took a swig of water.

"I don't usually get car sick, it's just I don't get too much sleep these days" he said lowering his heard " You heard what she said 'if I don't clean up my act she won't let me pitch' at all but every time I think of it I..." As he said this Mihashi began to cry and his tears slid down his face. It would be bad if he couldn't pitch, for him and for me, mainly because if I pitched too long the opposing team would quickly catch on and start to pulverize me and my team.

"Come on man, I know you're gonna pitch" I said, trying to calm Mihashi down.

'Gosh he's such a push over, if I wanted to be a jerk to him not only could I do it but he'd probably try to keep me out of trouble' I thought to my self and looked over at Abe and saw the disapproval in his eyes.

'But still with him as your catcher who wouldn't be intimidated' I though as I put my ear buds back in my ears and resumed listening to my book. A few hours later the bus reached the camp ground and we all got off the bus and were handed buckets by Mr. Shiga.

"Alright we'll need to gather plants that are edible for dinner, so split up into small groups and head out" he said and the rest of the team began to disperse into smaller groups, some asking him for specifics on what plants to gather while others just went ahead.

"Abe, Mihashi, Thomas" Coach Momoe said, signaling us to some over "sorry but you guys have a different program a head". With that she lead us down a skinny windy path to a baseball field, which was in superb condition.

"This field is owned by the local village and I managed to get permission to practice it in exchange for help in the forest, which is good because we can practice and get stronger from all the manual labor" Coach Momoe said as the three of us either sat or stood watching with our gear.

"Mihashi how fast do you think you can throw?" Coach Momoe asked.

"Let's see ... um about 100 maybe 101" Mihashi replied this caused Coach Momoe to begin to laugh.

"100 that's so lame" she said laughing causing Mihashi to seemingly deflate.

" How about you Thomas?" Coach Momoe asked trying to recover form her laughter.

"110 maybe 115, my thing is mainly velocity, placement, and my sinking split finger fastball" I replied causing Coach Momoe to give me a strange look.

"What? I told you my middle school coach didn't let me pitch a lot so I haven't gotten that much practice outside of throwing 85 pitches everyday with my dad" I said as I pulled out my glove.

"Well how about I give it a throw" she said giving Mihashi the pitch measurement device before walked to the mound and allowed Abe to get set before she threw the ball.

"Wow 122" Mihashi said as he stood looking at the pitch speed measuring device.

"Wait till I get warmed up I can probably add another 2 or 3 k" she said as she walked towards Mihashi.

"Th-Th-That was awesome!" Mihashi said marveling at the speed.

"Please Mihashi you can throw just as hard as me" Coach Momoe replied before turning to me "and you should be throwing harder". Coach handed Mihashi a 5 kilogram dumbbell before telling him to throw a pitch which he did, except it was wild and sailed into the back stop, much to Abe's disgust.

"Good Mihashi you gained 10 k on that throw now keep practicing this until you can do it correctly" she said.

"We don't need a wild pitcher, he's fine!" Abe replied, irritation clearly in his voice.

"Your right we don't need one" Coach Momoe said before casting a glance my way.

"Wait you want both of our pitchers to be out of control?" Abe said his anger so thick in his voice you could almost smell it.

"No I want both our pitcher to get faster, but this can only be done with practice so I want both of you to not throw any more pitches until you feel comfortable going from your windups" she said "oh and one more thing Mihashi, I called Mihoshi Academy trying to set up a game but they couldn't send the first team so they sent their B freshmen team" . Upon hearing this Mihashi began to sweat bullets, I don't mean pee shooter bullet's I mean 50 cal. bullets and he was sweating them faster than they could be fired by the actual gun.

"That's right we'll be playing the team that hates your guts" Coach Momoe said with a disturbingly large smile on her face.

"Uh Coach isn't that bad?" I asked putting as much emphasis on bad as possible.

"Nope any way have fun" she said walking off giving the aura of a person who'd given us tickets to Disneyland when it was more like she'd given us a choice between killing each other or being killed.

'What's wrong with that woman' I thought to myself as I picked up my glove.

"BY the way what's with your glove" Abe asked causing me to examine it.

"Oh this? Well this was my dad's old softball mitt and I use it now as a sort of dedication to him" I replied.

"But isn't the passing worn through?" Abe asked crossing his arms.

"Yeah but that's why I use the webbing when I catch balls" I replied as I punched the webbing of the glove.

"How am I supposed to get better with that hanging over my head ?" Mihashi asked as he began to sob again.

"Look having you two pitch at lest 130 would be great but it's okay neither of you are meant to be fast ball pitchers, your control pitchers" Abe replied back.

"NO! I'm sick of pitching slow" Mihashi said as he went back towards the mound.

"Hay wait a minute if you mess with your mechanics there's not turning back" Abe said as Mihashi went towards the mound "hey are you even listening to me".

"Abe" I said causing him to turn around and show me that he was truly on his last nerve "Abe listen just let Mihashi be well... Mihashi he'll learn eventually".

"Yeah but will it be too late?" Abe muttered back towards me as he went back to the plat and began some sort of warm up. We spent the next few hours practicing our windups and seeing how pissed off Abe could get at how much of a push over Mihashi was, I have never seen any one so angry in my life. When we began our long walk back to the cabin it was already dark and from the sounds inside of the cabin they were no doubt making dinner and opened the door just in time to hear Mr. Shiga's lecture on the hormones in the brain, I didn't really pay attention I have a natural ability to block out things I don't give a crap about. Before I knew it I was sitting at the dinner table and before me was a large array of food.

"Now say it, 'It looks great'" Mr. Shiga said.

"It looks great" We all yelled.

"It looks great" Mr. Shiga said, repeating himself.

"It looks great" We replied.

'It also smells great' I thought to myself.

"Thank you for the food" Coach Momoe said, giving a small bow.

"Thank you for the food" we all repeated before digging in and eating all of the food we could stomach and then some, at least in my case. After dinner we all returned to our separate rooms in the cabin and began to lay out or small futon mattresses. My room had Oki, Hani , Tajima, Mihashi, and I in it and we were all trying to find a place to put our stuff.

"Hey you don't, you don't think Coach Momoe and Shiga sensei are you know... dating right?" Hani asked causing everyone, except Tajima and me to cast a feeling of dread looking like they were sick.

"I think I just threw up in my mouth" some one whispered.

"Yeah me too" another chimed in.

"Wait, what?" Tajima asked completely oblivious to what they were implying.

"Come on guys my dad was 43 when he got married, don't be so dumb" I said as I laid out my futon and began to get ready to sleep.

"Hey isn't this room a little small for five people?" Oki asked causing almost everyone to look around. At that exact moment Mr. Shiga come in and lid out his own futon telling us to remember the positive things that we'd done today before going to sleep.

"Wait Shiga-sensei there isn't enough futons here for everyone" Oki said.

"Your right but the fact is the only way a human can truly bond with another human is by sharing a bed" Mr. Shiga said causing every one to move back in shock "that's why I want everyone one of you to share a futon with a different player every night-". He was cut off by Hanai pelting him in the face with a pillow which in turn caused everyone to go silent.

"That's sick" Hanai said only to get nailed in the face by Mr. Shiga and in total cause a huge pillow fight to erupt for a hour or so, in the end I was the only one who didn't have to share a futon, and I can only guess my size fueled that.

'I hope I can sleep tonight, I haven't been in this tight of a sleeping space since Boys Scouts" I though to myself as I slowly began to doze off to the sound of my snoring teammates.

Chapter 3

The day Abe, Mihashi, and I practice pitching at the small field all day from dawn till dusk testing how long Mihashi and I could go before we started to lose control. I was able to throw a total of 135 pitches while Mihashi only boasted 110, still Coach Momoe said it was very impressive for two kids who didn't have too much experience throwing so hard for such a long time.

"Since we have this knowledge and we have a game tomorrow let's call it a day" Coach said and turned to leave us towards the cabin. Before I turned to join her I gulped down the last 1/8 of my bottle of Gatorade.

"Hey I'm heading back" I yelled to Abe and Mihashi before jogging towards the cabin the jog to the cabin wasn't long, but it was long enough to allow me to think about what was about to transpire the next day.

'Alex and Brad are on that team, I never thought I'd have the joy no agony of playing them again' I though as I continued to jog to the cabin. My whole life Alex Damian and Brad Grant had been the ultimate examples of what I strived, o prayed to be. They had the talent and unfortunately for me I only had size or at least I though I mean I had managed to make this team right?

'The team needed players' I though to myself bringing myself back to reality as I reached the cabin and proceeded to go inside. The inside of the cabin was fairly chaotic some of the players were cleaning, others were cooking, and some were just talking. I walked over to Tajima, who at the time was goofing off, and sat down next to him.

"What does coach Momoe intend for us to do as our evening activity this time?" I asked as I took off my baseball cap and used it to wipe my brow.

"No idea, by the way why is Mihashi so jumpy to play Mihoshi Academy?" Tajima asked as he laid back and heard the door at the side of the cabin open.

"I think it's cause he has some history with them...bad history" I replied as I stood up and went to my room to put my stuff away. When I returned I found that dinner was being served and after enjoying a meal that was just as delicious, if not more, than the previous night's meal I left to use the restroom and returned to see the group was already in that night's evening activity. Seeing that every one of the mini groups was busy I calmly strolled over to where Mihashi and Abe were and silently sat down.

"Hey guys" I said causing Mihashi to pull a well a Mihashi and look at me as if I was threatening to hit him before calming down.

"Mihashi have you been getting any sleep?" Abe asked looking at Mihashi only to get a violent head shake in reply.

"Mihashi you haven't been sleeping?" I chimed in sort of leaning in towards Mihashi.

"We-We-We-Well N-N-No" He replied and looked down, the life almost sucked out of him.

"Well man, you gotta get some sleep" I said leaning against the wall that was behind Mihashi "Or else I'm gonna be the starter tomorrow". Hearing this Mihashi seemed to go into an almost fainted state, swaying around around light headedly.

"Dude calm down I was just joking" I said, putting a hand on Mihashi shoulder only to receive a fierce punch to the shoulder from Abe.

"Don't joke like that" Abe said, giving me a stern look.

"You're not actually considering doing that right?" I asked only to notice a pause in Abe's response.

"Well You can throw longer and harder than Mihashi" Abe said "But unlike you Mihashi can only pitch so it's really up to coach". After that things were very quiet and I kept questioning myself. Could I actually start a game? Could I even finish one? What would Mihashi do if I became the starter? Could I be a starter? Could I be an ace? The rest of the evening went by fast and before I knew it I was in my futon laying with awake staring blankly at the ceiling.

'I could be a starter?" I thought to myself before rolling over and seeing Mihashi next to me in a limbo state of being asleep and being awake.

'Poor guy, I bet things are worse for him' I thought as I rolled over onto my back 'he had to actually play with those bastards and now he has to play against them' and a few hours later I fell asleep. The next morning I woke up about 6:30, half an hour before we were supposed to, and walked out to the where my stuff was and began going through my morning routine. Every morning before the game I would grease my glove, check my batting helmet, my batting gloves and make myself a 3 course breakfast. At about 7:00 the rest of the team got up and, much to their surprise, were greeted with my 3 course American breakfast it had all the perks.

"Holy crap is this all for us" Tajima asked as he ran over to where the pancakes were.

"Depends" I replied causing everyone to look at me anxiously "will you eat regardless of it's taste. Everyone nodded and ran to the table to help themselves the meal was huge I had toast, pancakes, bacon, sausage, hash browns, regular eggs, cheese covered eggs, biscuits, waffles, coffee, hot chocolate all to be topped with jelly, butter, maple syrup, apple butter. Half way through the meal Coach Momoe and Mr. Shiga walked up to me.

"How'd you get the money for this?" Coach Momoe asked.

"You know how I told you we needed all that money for the last day?" I asked before taking a bit out of a waffle as Coach Momoe nodded.

"Well this is what some of it goes to, also in addition to being for the bus fair but I was thinking that we should get to eat out after the game or some of the money will go to waste" I finished before heading back into the free for all at the table. After grabbing some more food I was confronted by Shino'oka.

"This is amazing! When did you learn to cook so well?" She said, a bright smile on her face.

"Well when you got two working parents you learn to cook real fast" I replied before grabbing some of the empty plates and going to the sink. After the meal the whole team contributed to washing the dishes, drying them, and putting them away before tending to their gear. After getting onto the bus and being driven to Mihoshi Academy we got off the bus, put our gear in the dugouts and proceeded to go into our warm ups.

"Okay Mihashi and I will warm up, Thomas you go warm up with the rest of the team then come here and warm up after a while" Abe said, causing me to nod my head and go off to throw a few with Oki. After a few warm up throws with Oki Mihashi ran over to me and told me Abe was ready to get a few practice throws with me. I jogged to the bull pen and proceeded to throw all 5 of my pitches my fastball, split fingered fast ball, curveball, changeup, and finally my knuckle ball before switching back out with Mihashi.

"Hey Mihashi why do you keep glancing over towards the opposing team's dugout?" I asked as I looked over and saw that the opposing team was not only there but they were getting ready to practice.

"No-No reason Mihashi " replied between two gulps of breath.

"HEY!" a voice yelled causing Mihashi to turn with a look of near terror towards the opposing team's side of the field "MIHASHI". Seeing who it was Mihashi turned and bolted and I mean bolted out of the bull pen.

"Hey where the hell are you going?" Abe yelled as he saw Mihashi run.

"Don't worry Abe there's no way he's going to get over the fence" I calmly said only to see Mihashi climb over the fence, hope down to the other side, and continue running. I saw this and turned to see Abe's face not only red, but also contorted with rage.

"Abe, I can see that you're angry right now so, why don't I go find Mihashi, wait five minutes and then come looking for me" I told him calmly, trying to get him to calm down and I proceeded to go out of the playing field and walk towards the school. After a few minutes of searching I came across a scene that I don't think I'll ever forget, Mihashi sat up against a wall in terror as a large catcher in a black and blue uniform, with a foot up against the wall, stood in front of him.

"...do I have to break your arm for you to get the message?" the guy asked.

"Not if you fail to add in the fact that he has a team to help him all the way" I answered causing him to turn around and see me.

"Who are you?" the guy asked.

"A friend of the guy you bullying" I replied as I walked closer to him.

"Friend? You're a friend of that spaz? That sorry excuse for a pitcher don't make me laugh" the guy replied.

"Listen jack ass unless you want to start something off the field where you aren't protected by the rules of baseball I highly suggest that you back off" I said as I reached Mihashi and helped him up.

"What? " the guy asked taking a step that would've been intimidating to most but was not to me

"Run along little buddy don't look so pissed" I replied, turning to him giving off my full height and size "or else when I'm finished with you you'll be luck to even be walking". The boy seemed ready to go, but suddenly Abe came out of the bushed.

"Hey" Abe said, hearing this the guy turned and face him.

"Hey" he replied and walked away.

"What was that all about?" Abe asked as he came close to us.

"That asshole was threatening to break Mihashi's arm" I replied and saw the look in Abe's eyes.

"Why" he asked Mihashi.

"I was on his team and we lost almost all of our games because of me" Mihashi replied, tears coming out of his eyes at the memory.

"So that's why he was trying to break your arm?" Abe asked getting on one knee and seeing Mihashi break down right in front of him.

"Mihashi look at me" I said, causing Mihashi to look up at me "you know what this means right".

"You-you'll pitch instead of me?" Mihashi asked a faint bit of hope in his voice.

"Nope" I replied "it means you have to pitch, to show them that you're a different pitcher then back in middle school". With that I left them and made my way towards the field.

"Hey Thomas" A voice called out causing me to turn around and see Alex and Brad in front of me. An pregnant pause followed as we stared at each other for a few minutes.

"Hi" Brad said.

"Hi" I replied the answer was followed by another pause.

"We didn't think that we'd be seeing you again" Alex added on, at this I turned away.

"Well things change" I replied.

"Come on Thomas we both know you want to play with us, your friends, again why don't you just admit it" Brad said, this caused me to flinch and turn around.

"I cut all ties with you two when I went to Nishiura and joined their team, we are no longer teammates, we were teammates, but we aren't anymore" I replied and turned to go.

"You know if you leave on their bus, as part of their team we will never play on the same team again" Alex said, I stopped.

"Then so be it" I replied and went on my way.

'This is more than a game, this is how Mihashi and I will ride ourselves of our inner demons' I though as I finally got into viewing distance of the field.


End file.
